Tibetan / Vajrayana

Vajrayana Buddhism is most closely associated with Tibet and can be characterized by the figure of the siddha, the master whose spiritual realization is so profound that he or she has power over the phenomenal world, and in whom the profundity and vastness of absolute truth is fully and completely manifested. Many of our most well-known authors come from this tradition of Tibetan Buddhism .

[Note: The tags for the various schools are not definitive as many books span multiple traditions, etc. They are meant to use as a starting point for exploring this collection.]

The urgency of spiritual practice has seldom been as simply and powerfully conveyed as it is in Padampa Sangye’s One Hundred Verses. This Tibetan Buddhist classic is an antidote to the tendency we all have to waste our precious human lives. Khenchen Thrangu’s lively commentary on the text brings to light its subtleties and amplifies its applicability to our daily struggles, showing how an understanding of its teaching on impermanence… Read More

This volume is a heartfelt, intimate presentation of the entire system of the Nyingma tradition from sutra to tantra to Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, and how through it, modern-day practitioners can succeed in attaining fully realized buddhahood. Inspiring stories of the great masters Longchenpa and Jigme Lingpa kindle the prerequisites of faith and devotion that are the basis for the practices that follow. The Tibetan Buddhist master Nyoshul Khenpo Jamyang… Read More

The Buddha’s teaching on karma (literally, “action”) is nothing other than his compassionate explanation of the way things are: our thoughts and actions determine our future, and therefore we ourselves are largely responsible for the way our lives unfold. Yet this supremely useful teaching is often ignored due to the misconceptions about it that abound in popular culture, especially oversimplifications that make it seem like something not to be taken… Read More

From the noble lotus pond of pure conduct,The swan of intelligence calls.By the white wings of the three practices of the teachings, May all wise sentient beings be happy.—Kunkhyen LongchenpaWith the wish to inspire and motivate practitioners, Kyabje Thinley Norbu Rinpoche has translated a selection of wisdom teachings into direct and simple English that retains the power of the original writings and their emphasis on practice. The authors are five… Read More

In 1838, Choying Tobden Dorje, a Buddhist yogi-scholar of eastern Tibet, completed a multivolume masterwork that traces the entire path of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism from beginning to end. Written by a lay practitioner for laypeople, it was intended to be accessible, informative, inspirational, and above all, practical. Its twenty-five books, or topical divisions, offer a comprehensive and detailed view of the Buddhist path according to the early… Read More

What is true happiness? What is the cause of our suffering and dissatisfaction? And how can we live with the kindness and clarity of the Buddha in our own lives? This compact collection of teachings from Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche illuminates these most fundamental questions about the Buddhist path and provides essential guidance to help you along the way. Oriented to both beginners to Buddhism and longtime practitioners alike, these teachings… Read More

The epic of Gesar has been the national treasure of Tibet for almost a thousand years. An open canon of tales about a superhuman warrior-king, the epic is still a living oral tradition, included on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This book is a translation of the beginning portion of this enormous corpus, covering all the events from Gesar’s divine conception to his human birth… Read More

The Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra is among the best known of all the Buddhist scriptures. Chanted daily by many Zen students, it is also studied extensively in the Tibetan tradition, and it has been regarded with interest more recently in the West in various fields of study—from philosophy to quantum physics. In just thirty-five lines, it expresses the truth of impermanence and the release from suffering that results from the… Read More

The unconditional love that we all long for can be experienced in the practice of loving-kindness. In this popular form of meditation, the love inherent to our own nature is gradually expanded until it embraces infinite beings. Tulku Thondup introduces a new four-stage format for this practice, rooted in the traditional teachings of Tibetan Buddhism: We first meditate on the Buddha of Loving-Kindness as a body of unconditional love and… Read More

In this series of tales, a prince must capture and bring back to his country a zombie who is endowed with magical powers—but in order to succeed he must keep himself from speaking even one word to the zombie. The zombie is wily, and during the long journey he recounts fascinating tales to the prince, who is carrying him in a sack on his back. Spellbound by the stories, the… Read More